Quil Lawrence

David Aquila ("Quil") Lawrence is an award-winning correspondent for NPR News, covering the millions of Americans who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as they transition to life back at home.

Previously, Lawrence served as NPR's Bureau Chief in Kabul. He joined NPR in 2009 as Baghdad Bureau Chief – capping off ten years of reporting in Iraq and all the bordering countries. That experience made the foundation for his first book Invisible Nation: How the Kurds' Quest for Statehood is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East, published in 2008.

Before coming to NPR, Lawrence was based in Jerusalem, as Middle East correspondent for The World, a BBC/PRI co-production. For the BBC he covered the fall of the Taliban in December 2001 and returned to Afghanistan periodically to report on development, the drug trade and insurgency.

Lawrence began his career as a freelancer for NPR and various newspapers while based in Bogota, Colombia, covering Latin America. Other reporting trips took him to Sudan, Morocco, Cuba, Pakistan and Iran.

A native of Maine, Lawrence studied history at Brandeis University, with concentrations in the Middle East and Latin America. He is fluent in Spanish and conversant in Arabic.

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Friday that it will stop dropping caregivers from its stipend program. The temporary suspension comes three days after a report from NPR exposed concerns from veterans that their caregivers were arbitrarily cut, despite no change in their status.

Chris Kurtz is trying to keep his sense of humor. Even after the VA told him last summer that he no longer needs a caregiver.

"Apparently my legs grew back, I dunno," he says with a laugh, and sinks into his couch in Clarksville, Tenn. And then he mentions that he probably can't get out of the couch without help from his wife.

On a recent chilly day in Manhattan, a group of veterans marched a dozen miles up the island — from the historic Fraunces Tavern to the spot where the first woman pensioned by the United States Army fired her cannon at British redcoats.

There were plenty of reasons that Army Maj. D.J. Skelton might never have made it to his retirement ceremony this week in Arlington, Va.

West Point had admitted him through a small program for already enlisted soldiers. When he got there he racked up one of the worst disciplinary records in the history of the academy, yet still managed to graduate and become an officer.

But the biggest reason is written in the scars on his face and his unblinking, black glass eye.

President Trump delivered a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars annual convention in Kansas City, Mo., offering many of his regular talking points about everything from tariffs to immigration to the new American Embassy in Jerusalem.

Trump was interrupted repeatedly by applause and shouts of support - notably when he mentioned his hopes that the remains of Korean War veterans would soon be repatriated, as agreed in his June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

President Trump's second VA secretary, Robert Wilkie, was confirmed 86-9 by the Senate on Monday. He takes the helm of the second largest department in the U.S. government, with more than 350,000 employees, a nearly $200 billion budget and almost 20 million American veterans depending on it for care and benefits.

That may sound like a herculean task. Now add that the department has been in turmoil since Trump sacked his first VA secretary, David Shulkin, with dozens of senior staff, subject matter experts and career officials quitting or being pushed out.

The commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, Gen. Robert Neller, stopped by a mosque outside Baltimore on Thursday evening for Iftar, the fast-breaking meal during the month of Ramadan, when practicing Muslims don't eat or drink during daylight hours.

In the early days of the Iraq War, troops were riding around in Humvees with almost no armor on them. There was a scandal about it, and within a few years the trucks got up-armored with thick steel plates, which solved one problem but created another.

"Some genius thought about up-armoring. Good! But they didn't do anything with the brake systems," says George Wilmot, who was riding an armored Humvee in 2009, leaving a hilltop base in Mosul.

"We took some small arms fire ... my driver took us off a cliff," says Wilmot.

The pick wasn't surprising, but the announcement was – President Trump will nominate Robert Wilkie, the acting secretary of Veterans Affairs, to become the department's new secretary.

Trump was speaking at a meeting on prison reform at the White House when he veered off topic to introduce Wilkie to the room. Trump praised the job Wilkie has been doing since he stepped in at the VA from the Department of Defense in March, and then gave everyone a surprise, including Wilkie.